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Arrival
Admiral Hackett contacts Commander Shepard to ask for help rescuing Dr. Amanda Kenson, an Alliance deep-cover operative in Batarian space who has come across evidence that a Reaper invasion is imminent. Hackett explains that Kenson was recently captured by batarians and charged with terrorism. Wanting to avoid a diplomatic incident with the Batarian Hegemony, Hackett requests Shepard go in solo and rescue the scientist as a favor. Shepard agrees to help and uses coordinates given by Hackett to travel to the batarian prison on the planet Aratoht where Kenson is being held. Landing outside the prison, Shepard makes it past several security measures and prison guards. Shepard locates Kenson in the middle of an interrogation and frees her. Shepard and Kenson fight past more guards and escape on a batarian shuttle. On the way to Kenson's team's base, she reveals that she and her team had entered batarian space to investigate rumors of Reaper technology orbiting on the fringes of the Bahak system. The team discovered a Reaper artifact they dubbed "Object Rho" hidden in the asteroids near the system's mass relay, and learned from it that the Reapers were rapidly approaching. The Reapers could use the system's mass relay, the "Alpha Relay", to strike anywhere in the galaxy. Kenson and her team started what they called "the Project" to prevent this from happening. Their plan was to hurl a large asteroid at the Alpha Relay and destroy it, delaying the Reapers' plans by months or even years as they are forced to find another relay. A consequence of this plan would be that the relay's supernova-like explosion would obliterate the Bahak system and kill the 300,000 inhabitants of Aratoht. Since the stakes are so high, Shepard insists on seeing Kenson's evidence first. Kenson agrees and informs her team at the Project Base that she and Shepard are en route. At the Project Base, Shepard notices a numeric readout above the hangar gateway. Kenson says that the readout is a countdown to the Reapers' arrival; in two days, the Reapers will be at the Alpha Relay. The countdown itself is based on pulses emitted by Object Rho. The pulses are reactions to the Reapers' proximity and the intervals between them have been decreasing steadily. In little over 48 hours, the pulses will become constant and the Reapers will have arrived. As Kenson leads Shepard to Object Rho, she explains that "the Project" is ready to go. The team hasn't been debating if it could be carried out, but rather if it should be. The Reapers will arrive regardless, but without the shortcut that the Alpha Relay provides, they would be forced to spend months or even years more traveling to another relay. At the lab, Kenson presents Object Rho to Shepard. The Commander becomes wary after seeing that the Reaper artifact is sitting in the open. Kenson tells Shepard to wait for the artifact to show Shepard a vision which will prove that the invasion is real. Shepard is overcome with the vision, which shows dozens of Reapers speeding towards a mass relay. Suddenly, Kenson pulls a gun on Shepard and says she can't let the Commander stop the Reapers; Kenson and her team had been indoctrinated by Object Rho. Shepard disarms Kenson, who escapes and locks Shepard in the chamber as it is swarmed with guards. Shepard fights as long as possible, but is eventually incapacitated. Shepard awakens two days later in a medical lab in Project Base, to the surprise of the monitoring medic. Shepard disables two guards, but is locked in the room by the medic. At a nearby terminal, the Commander gains control of a LOKI Mech outside, which Shepard uses to kill the scientist and break the mechanism that seals off the room. Shepard suits up and advances through the Project Base, intending to complete "the Project" before the Reapers arrive in less than two hours. The Commander fights through Kenson's indoctrinated security guards to reach the control center and prepares to activate the Base's engines. After being warned by the Base's VI that initiating the Project will kill all of the Bahak system's 304,942 colonists, Shepard confirms the order. The engines fire, and the asteroid accelerates toward the Alpha Relay. Dr. Kenson interrupts Shepard's attempt to access communications, threatening to overload the Base's fusion core to stop the Project. Getting to the core, Shepard has to manually initiate cooling systems to stop Kenson's crazed plan. In the core chamber, Kenson laments not being able to hear the Reapers' whispers any more and witness their coming to the galaxy. When she raises a bomb detonator, Shepard either shoots Kenson in the chest to stop her or tries to talk her down, but regardless of the outcome, Kenson still presses the button and dies in the explosion, which also incapacitates Shepard. When Shepard recovers, the asteroid is now minutes away from colliding with the Alpha Relay. Commander Shepard races to the Project Base's shuttle landing pads to escape, but is too late; the last of the shuttles lifts off and speeds away, leaving behind other Project personnel. Shepard eliminates them and finds a communications uplink nearby. While calling the Normandy, Harbinger appears via a hologram projector and tells Shepard that the fall of the galaxy's civilization is inevitable. Before disconnecting, Harbinger tells Shepard to "Prepare for the Arrival." The Normandy makes its approach and Shepard lands a running jump into the airlock. Seconds before the asteroid hits, the Normandy escapes the Bahak system through the relay. As anticipated, the relay is destroyed and the explosion obliterates the system. Sometime later, Admiral Hackett boards the Normandy to debrief Commander Shepard in-person. Hackett wants Shepard to explain why a simple rescue mission ended with the destruction of a batarian system. Shepard confirms that Dr. Kenson's proof of the Reaper invasion was real, and the invasion had been only days away. The Commander had no choice but to destroy the Alpha Relay, despite how this would doom the batarian colonists. Hackett is satisfied by Shepard's story, saying he would give a medal to Shepard for this, but reveals that tensions between the Systems Alliance and the Batarian Hegemony were running high; the batarians might start a war over Shepard's actions. Before leaving, Hackett warns that at some point, Shepard will have to face trial over this incident on Earth.